Chapter 431 - Deathtrap (Patreon)

A week passes. A quite nice week full of training and ideas.

We also got to fight a few monsters with levels over 300, often ending in a group effort.

Of course, I took some of them on my own to not become too rusty. An earthworm that kept burying underground.

Letting it swallow me while in my mana armor and burning it from the inside proved to be a good strategy.

I'm normal here.

Or that huge bug with its extremely durable shell that I couldn't pierce without using too much mana that I was saving.

Letting it swallow me while in my mana armor and burning it from the inside proved to be a good strategy.

Great strategy even. Greatest strategy of all time.

I'm normal here.

Group 4 also got to show off against similar monsters, often trying new formations when attempting to fight strategically. Sometimes they just went after monsters 1v1, with someone else jumping in when it seemed dangerous.

Putting people into life-and-death danger is something I think is a must, and Tess agrees.

We could fight weaker monsters and level easily. We could do it in groups. But sooner or later, humans tend to become confident, used to that, forgetting where we are. Reminding them is a good thing.

Even if you get hurt and bleed. Even if Lily has to literally put your guts back into your belly or regrow your limbs. Even if Izzy then nicely sits next to you and pats your back while you sit there in shock. Even if Biscuit lets you pet him to calm your shaking arm.

Tess doesn’t want anyone to die. She hates the thought of it the most out of the entire group. If someone said Group 4 is her group, I wouldn't argue. Tess did more than anyone else to keep all these people together, and the strain it puts on her is something everyone can see.

So how can you then go to her and complain? How can you sit down, cry, and refuse to fight when you see her doing the same things?

Over and over again, Tess pushes herself to the limit. She bleeds, she suffers but she clenches her teeth and pushes through and grows, her talent tied together with strong determination.

She expects a lot, but she offers more, and when she declares she is willing to die for this group, everyone trusts her.

People like Tess will be worshipped on Earth. Millions will look up to her and others. I’m sure of that.

The tall blonde with a crown of lightning floating over her head, forcing her will onto the world. Discovering the road she wants to take and then having enough confidence to think it’s the correct one.

***

We stop at the palace called the Last Rest. It’s an outpost without any walls, just a few dozen simple stone buildings made without a single brick. All the surfaces are smooth, the buildings likely made with a skill or with the help of a skill. That place is overseen by a man called Ottis.

Ottis is someone from the central region who stays in the Last Rest to organize caravans heading there. It’s something he takes very seriously.

There is a rumor he tortured a few guides for over 10 years, keeping them alive just to cause them more pain until they went crazy. He did that because these guides led a caravan the wrong way, causing the death of all the people in it. All in order to get the items and other things from the bodies.

Why Ottis did it is still a bit of a mystery. Like everyone else here, he is a criminal thrown onto this moon.

That also makes an interesting point. Why are these people ending up here instead of being killed? There is no way this is simpler than a swift death.

Rules? Traditions? Something we don’t know yet? It’s something I’m sure we will discover later as we progress through this floor.

Passing through the place, we aren’t annoyed too much, something I think is caused by the crowns over my head and Tess’s. Some people notice them; the skills must be rare enough to not make us look like just some random guys.

Of course, a few assholes try to put marks on us or do some other bullshit, but it’s something either I or Sophie detect quickly, attacking back.

Where I just reach that person and break a few bones, Sophie lashes back with something that feels like the result of our defenses instead of a mind attack. But she makes sure it is painful.

It’s fascinating to see so many people moving around, and plenty of them of different races. From some point of view, it reminds me of the Entrance Floor of Beyond. Just with weaker people.

Hmm, maybe weaker wouldn’t be the correct word. Some of these people probably have higher levels than plenty of people I met in Beyond. The difference is the quality.

Even so, we don’t meet anyone over 300; the highest levels feel around 280.

I wouldn’t be surprised with such a setup and system if there are more powerful people in the central region. Even so, most of them here are at around level 200. I think level 200 is somewhere around the average the attendee should be after reaching the 6th floor. Some a bit lower, some with a bit higher level.

My level of 260 is a rarity, but it’s something I can thank my skillset for. Large-scale powerful explosions. As my minion would say, Kaboom.

There are advantages to it, as shown by my level, but disadvantages as well. I still do not have a single-target, very powerful attack. Lily and her [Disintegration] is something I can’t compare to. I also think Tess, with her potent mana and primordial lightning, could cause more damage to a single target if she tried.

It’s fine by me. I can cause large-scale damage; I just need to compress it more. Even more than the tricolored orb, compressed thermal energy, or kinetic energy. I think it’s difficult for Tess and Lily to “uncompress” their single-target damage and turn it into large-scale.

Future Nathaniel will appreciate all the work I put into all of that. Avoiding falling into the trap of quick returns and focusing on future growth instead. It got beaten into me by Lissandra as well, the reason why I decided to not use black mana as long as I can. All out of worry that if I did, I would only end up as a very powerful Champion or a weak Absolute, unable to go higher.

I detect another touch on our group. This one feels more disgusting. An attempt to put marks that would mess with our mana, causing backlash or something more sinister.

The target of that is Isabella, Biscuit, and the twins.

(I got it,) I send to Sophie.

Placing an anchor, I reach the man and woman on top of the roof of a smaller house near the street.

I stop them from moving with [Redistribution] and constantly disrupt their mana, making them stay there, halfway to standing up as they felt my presence. They weren’t even given enough time to fully react, resulting in a strange, halfway expression on their faces.

The reason why this is happening is quite simple. All these people are to join the caravan and are already attempting to weaken groups that will go there. It likely serves as improving the safety of their group, or more likely to make us weaker and hope we die so they can take our equipment.

Even though there are guides who won’t do that for the fear of being tortured, there is nothing like that for people passing through. No one would complain if most of the groups die, just keeping enough to stave off dangers of the Mana Desert is enough.

“I think it was quite a dick move to focus on our youngest,” I mention to the two unmoving people. “Did they seem like an easy target? Did you think them dying would cause distress to some of us and make it easier for you? Maybe you liked the items you saw on us and didn’t think much.”

I take Bloodthirst off my back and stab it into the belly of the man who even now doesn’t move.

As always, the blade absorbs the blood of its target, none of it seeping from the wound.

The woman’s eyes tick from side to side, the only part of her body I’m not blocking. They try to gesture something to me, they plead, they glance at the man and then away.

“You should have thought of that before touching them.”

Pulling Bloodthirst from the now-dead man, I slash it towards the woman.

***

Sophie and I monitor people around us and our group while Tess and Lily head towards the guides who organize the caravan. Other than little fights here and there and some backstabbing, there isn’t much annoying stuff happening.

All of it is overseen by the presence I can feel even now. Just like everyone else, as that presence lets itself be known. The Guardian of Last Rest, Ottis, does so, and to be honest, he feels strong. I mean really strong.

My suspicion is he’s over level 300, but not seeing him around, I can’t confirm. That would mean he got his Primary class upgrade/change, and who knows what else.

(I don’t like it,) Sophie mentions, and even now she keeps strengthening the web around our group.

Together with me and the twins, we make sure to keep up the link between our group members. There, I find out that if I were a bit better, I should be able to do very, very interesting things through that connection.

For example, if set properly, I should be able to use [Tether] and teleport Group 4 around in a similar way Gareth did with his group. That and some more interesting things. But that’s what I plan to work out when we split, so I push it to the back to not distract me.

(Luck favors the brave or something like that?) I send to Sophie.

(Or they are not asking for any payment for joining the caravan because we will go to the central region to become slaves or something worse. A few hundred dumb dickheads crawling over each other just to get there.)

(For someone who already passed through the 1st Beyond trial, I would expect you to be more daring.)

(I know, I know, just this smells so bad.)

(Now you make me feel déjà vu.) I shake my head. (Just continue with the plan and save your mana as much as you can. Your mindblender stuff will be good against people if they decide to do some crap. Even in Beyond, not many of them had good defenses against it.)

I then listen as she talks about being worried about Isabella, as the true siscon she is. But I ignore it so far and continue to look towards where the Mana Desert is.

A never-ending stretch of dunes. The sand is white and not orange, brown, or yellow.

It isn’t simple sand either. There isn’t any other place on this moon from what we’ve heard. Those dunes are made of something entirely different from simple sand.

Ground bones of giant Champion or Absolute rank monsters. Remains of giant cities turned into tiny white particles. Mountains destroyed and turned into this after millennia. Something left behind by one of the Rulers. Remains of a powerful attack by the Absolute.

No one knows.

And there, a clear line between where the Mana Desert starts and where the Last Rest is. An impossibly straight line as if someone drew it in the air and made it be. Not a single speck of that white sand crosses beyond that line, and the grayish stone surface of the barren world contrasts with it.

There’s also a giant vehicle for lack of a better word. It’s a combination of a giant ship and a train.

It’s entirely made of thick metal. There are scratches, there are holes, there is a lot of rust, and some parts are missing. The metal plates are interwoven with inscriptions, offering it more defenses.

And it floats, currently just slightly in the air, all of it reminding me of Skyhold Bastions from the 5th floor. Just more rough and insane-looking.

I think it has some fancy name, but everyone here, even the guides, calls it simply Deathtrap.

There is also a new side quest:

Side quest: Reach Central Region

Reward:
5000 shards
Food and water supplies

The system really wants us to go there.

***

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